The gender superannuation gap has been evidenced in recent Savvy research with almost half of men having a balance of more than $100,000 compared to 24% of women.
The survey of over 1,000 adults found 44% of men had a super balance of more than $100,000, 16% had a balance of over $200,000 and 7% had more than $400,000.
This compared to 24%, 9% and 4% of women for the same balances respectively.
Almost half of women had less than $50,000 in their super accounts.
The national gender pay gap was 14% with women in Australia earning $263.90 less than men which was having a knock-on effect of reducing their super as well as their salary.
Over half (57%) of people said they were not making any additional contributions to their super. For those who opted to make extra contributions, 15% added an extra 1%-5% of their income while 8% contributed 6%-10%.
There was also a lack of confidence in securing a comfortable retirement with 52% of people aged 45-54 and 40% aged 55-64 feeling unconfident or not confident at all that they would have enough to retire with at 65.
Youthful optimism reigned, however, with only a quarter saying they did not feel confident in achieving a comfortable retirement.
Savvy said more needed to be done to educate people on how they could grow their super to achieve a comfortable retirement.
The latest superannuation performance test results have shown improvements, but four in 10 trustee-directed products continue to exhibit “significant investment underperformance”, warns APRA.
The corporate regulator has launched civil proceedings against Equity Trustees over its inclusion of the Shield Master Fund on super platforms it hosted, but other trustees could also be in the firing line.
The shadow minister for financial services says reworking the superannuation performance test to allow investment in house and clean energy risks turning super into a ‘slush fund’ for government.
Australia’s superannuation sector has expanded strongly over the June quarter, with assets, contributions, and benefit payments all recording notable increases.